Just like the Obamas

The Lady and I went to the gym at the weekend. Twice. She ran more than I ever thought she could. Yet another reason why I love her.

Hearts-a-pumpin', pumpin' iron, and other non-pump related activities

I'm back at the gym! Not right at this moment obviously, as this would be a pretty poor excuse for a workout. I've devised a plan of going twice daily if I can, working my arms, legs, and shoulders in the morning, and my chest, stomach, and bum at lunchtime. The only way I can really do the whole gym thing is to take it a little bit too far... although you can never be in too great a shape, right? Also, the Lady may be hopping on the gym bandwagon, although her body is trouser-tighteningly perfect in my humble opinion. And I think we'll be doing a yoga class or something together, so we'll be a very bendy couple!

Speaking of the Lady, we'll have been together six whole months next Friday! The time's just flown by, but at the same time, I find it hard to recall a time when she wasn't in my life. I love her more than anything, she makes me very, very happy. For notre demi-anniversary, we'll be doing something lovely, as always: A lovely picnic lunch in Hyde Park, followed by a visit to London Zoo, capped off with a lovely dinner. And one of her presents has arrived already! Just waiting to go and get the other one now, need to ponce a lift of off someone though, what with my lack of driving ability...

And while we're on the subject of lovely things, it's summer time! (And the living is easy/it's our vacation, depending on whether you prefer Gershwin or High School Musical 2) That means festivals, picnics, hot nights, long days, and (as Danny Zuco and co put it) "summer lovin'". I'm really excited, I love my life at the moment, so freaking happy!

And I'll be turning nineteen on the 14th of August, with no idea what I'd like, no idea what I'm doing for it (except that I'll be spending a good portion of it with my arms wrapped around my girlfriend), and no idea about much else in general! Here's a list of possible things I may like very much for my birthday, and is slightly more realistic than the last:

• A kiss from my girlfriend.
• A cuddle from my girlfriend.
• To fall asleep with my girlfriend's beautiful head on my chest.

That'd do me. That's all I'll ever need. I love her.

Stuff I've been doing

• Attending the Hop Farm Festival and being uber disappointed by Bob Dylan.
• Writing angry letters to people who need to know how much they've hurt me, but then never sending them, which may seem pointless but is very therapeutic.
• Thinking about how much I love my girlfriend and then going "aaaaaaaaaaaaahhh" at an apparently audible level...
• Sorting out presents for the fast-approaching sixth monthaversary of me and the Lady, one of which arrived today.
• Dedicating myself to making sure we have a lovely date night every week, which I bloody love.
• Playing backgammon.
• Looking forward to V Festival and Reading Festival, which are set to occupy the last two August weekends with skull fuckingly awesome good times.
• Wearing my Ray-Bans to work because hello, it's summer.
• Starting my articles for a Twitter friend's vegan e-zine, the first of which is on cruelty free fashion.
• Returning to the gym, which has subsequently resulted in lots of going "aaaarggh, my arms hurt".
• Humming. I do this a lot according to my least favourite coworkers.
• Thinking of a nice holiday destination for the Lady and me at the start of September.
• Feeling a bit rubbish due to my lack of vegan recipes to share with y'all.
• Playing the new Sims 3 expansion pack, where I've created characters analogous to the Lady and myself, because I'm very sad/a hopeless romantic/just really fucking sad.
• Considering an elephant tattoo.
• Being frustrated at the lack of quiff preparation time I have in the mornings...

Good times...

Things in my life have, recently, been very awesome indeed. First things first, I've been spending lots and lots of time with the Lady, who makes me happier than I ever thought I could be. Tonight we'll be rebooting our dates with dinner and a film, which will be lovelylovelylovely. And then I'll be staying round on Thursday night, which will be wonderful, I love waking up next to her, watching her perfect chest gently rise and fall as she... (ahem) I mean, er, manly things! Did you see the football? Wasn't it... football-y? I thought that (mumbles name so as not to blow cover) played very well. There, that should assert my manliness...

Also it's payday today! Which means I've got some money with which to actually buy things! And this month I intend to budget properly. I've got a little budget worked out so that I'll have some saved each month, and I intend to stick to it like shit on a shoe. The necessities are:

1. £282.80 - train fares from Wickford to Liverpool Street
2. £100 - dates (roughly £25 a date, may dip into miscellaneous expenses)
3. £9.20 - NME (at £2.30 an issue)
4. £28 - nice lunches (an average of £7 a week, allowing a rotation of Pilpel, Itsu, Japanika/Chop'd, and Wagamama) to relieve me from the mundanity of sandwiches 'n' soup...

There are a few other expenses coming out this month (Sims game, kinky things, the Lady's present, Hop Farm cash) but none of this should break the bank... And if I stick to this budget properly, I'll still have roughly half my pay left! Good times!

I've been to a couple of really amazing gigs in the past week, both at the Roundhouse in Camden. Last Wednesday I went to see the Black Keys, who I must admit I'd not really heard of, but who were pretty good anyway. And this Monday I went to see the Dead Weather, Jack White and Alison Mosshart's motherfucker of a band, who were incendiary. Really, fucking amazing. Hop Farm's this weekend though, so after Bob Dylan, I doubt I'll even remember who Jack White is...

No recipe this time, can't think of anything good...

My Birthday List...

My birthday is now less than two months away, so I've started to things I might like:

• The Millenium Falcon. Not a toy, the actual Millenium Falcon. Although I've been asking for this since I was about six, so I won't hold my breath.
• Peanut butter that doesn't get stuck in my teeth.
• A time stretcher that would allow me more time to spend with the Lady.
• Pirate ship to match my pirate trousers, I'll recruit my own pirates though.
• Marmalade.
• Books about acorns that fought in major wars.
• Six copies of the Who's "Tommy" on vinyl. Just because.
• A little stack of crudely written (and even more crudely illustrated) pornographic novels.
• Blonde wig, with fringe.

That's pretty much it.

What a lovely weekend...

Good morning, lovely, wonderful reader... Today I'm very, very happy, having spent the most incredible weekend with the beautiful and lovely Lady. We spent a couple of lovely nights in together, and then she met my dad, stepmum, and half-sisters on Sunday. Which was just lovely, and it's clear that the little ones have really taken a shine to her. I love her more than anything, every moment with her is heaven.

I've been doing a lot of thinking recently, mostly about the following:

• The Lady: she's amazing, always at the forefront of my mind, I love her so much.
• Cooking: I need to be doing more of it, and trying new recipes.
• Vlogging: Which I intend to use to force myself to do more cooking. I could do two recipes a week or something...
• Music festivals: They're nearly here! 3rd of July marks the beginning of festival season for me, I absolutely can't wait!
• The Lady, again: I think about her a lot, just saying...
• Cartoons: I love them. I dream in cartoon form, mostly, and really wish I could draw better...
• Clothes: I'm selling quite a few of them, but know I'll just end up buying more of them as soon as payday rolls around...
• Films: I'd really like to write a film, I've got lots of little ideas, just can't ever seem to make them fit together in any kind of way that makes sense to anyone...
• The future: As in the 'wife and two kids' kind of future, not the 'robots and flying cars' kind of future.
• Summertime: It's my favourite time of the year, my birthday's in it, music festivals are in it, and I get to spend it with the Lady!
• My birthday: I'll be nineteen! I've no idea what I want, or what I want to do for it, but I'm really quite childishly excited...
• And the Lady, yet again: Seriously. She's amazing.

Alas no recipe for today! Maybe you could just... do... a stir fry? With... vegan... things?

Tardy to the party, good riddance to bad rubbish, guitar tuition, etc.

Good morning, lovely reader (I use the singular because I feel it's unlikely that anyone would read this tripe with a friend or loved one), I'm back with another slice of bloggy goodness. I'm typing this from the office, which I've been at since just before 7 this morning, and am squinting at the screen through eyes so red and bloodshot that I look like I've been on a two week binge with Amy Winehouse. Nevertheless, to paraphrase the Thing from the Fantastic 4, "it's bloggering time"...

Glee. A programme that I should, my all means, hate. But I don't. It's really good. The characters are lovely and well thought out, the plots (while ridiculous) are entertaining, and they produce some not half bad covers of great songs. I wish I'd realised this sooner. At the end of this week's episode I was genuinely thinking "hmm, yes, I could get into this Glee lark", and then the E4 announcer guy goes "and that's it for the current series of Glee". Talk about being tardy to the party... Now I am fated to scour the internet in search of every Glee episode, and to stay up until four in the morning so that I've watched every episode before series 2 comes along...

I've also had a rethink of some of the people who really got on my nerves, for one reason or another, and have decided "you know what? Fuck 'em". So that's that. I've already got one arse, I don't need any more, especially when they aren't nearly as perky as mine, and don't look quite so good in tight jeans. Facebook is partly to blame, allowing people to say things that they wouldn't dare to say in real life, with little to no repurcussions because it's hard (if not impossible) to punch someone in the throat via the internet. Good riddance to bad rubbish, I'm throwing you away like yesterday's jam...

Tonight I shall be teaching a guitar lesson to my mum's possibly perhaps maybe boyfriend, and I'm quite looking forward to it. I've got my acoustic guitar sitting under my desk, ready to teach him all kinds of chords, and notes, and other musician-y sounding things, although I'm slightly erked that he wants to learn Oasis songs rather than the Smiths-y stuff I had prepared. Oh well, I'm sure everything will be fine, so long as he doesn't do anything wrong and plays everything perfectly first time, without questioning that I'm fucking awesome and always right...

Here's today's vegan recipe: Ratatouille. It's simple, classic, healthy, and 100% animal free!

Ingredients
2 sticks of celery, roughly chopped
3 courgettes, cut into 2cm rounds
2 aubergines, cut into 2cm pieces
2 yellow and orange peppers, cut into thick strips
6 tomatoes, roughly chopped
20g pack fresh basil, torn
3 tbsp olive oil
2 onions, sliced
2 large cloves garlic, chopped

Method
1. Heat olive oil in a large pan. Add the onion and cook, stirring, for 4–5 minutes, until soft.
2. Add the garlic, celery, courgettes, aubergine and peppers. Cover and cook gently for 35 minutes, until the vegetables are softened.
3. Add the tomatoes and season. Cook, uncovered, for 20 minutes, until all the vegetables are tender. Stir in the basil just before serving.